Nationalism in the Pacific

The appearance of what appears to be another analysis, by anothei scholarly author, of European colonisation of lands in or bordering the Pacific, may not ordinarily stir much interest. There have been a scon of such books since World War ll—some useful, some impressive, am most of them reaching different conclusions.

OUT a new book by Dr. A. Gren " fell Price, an Adelaide scholar, The Western Invasions of the Pacific and its Continents—a Study of Moving Frontiers and Changing Landscapes, 1513-1958, is different, and is welcome in at least one re spect.

It finds much more merit than evil in the colonisation of the Pacific countries in the past 400 years by Europeans, and it suggests that this continuing “Europeanisation” of the world has accelerated human progress and added incalculably to the living standards of most human beings.

“Colonialism” has been so criti cised and condemned lately that it has become a very dirty word. But the wide survey made by Dr. Price, based on lengthy and intensive re search, indicates that colonialism ac tually opened a new world for count less millions of hitherto retarded peoples in and around the Pacific.

The Europeans may now be in re treat from nearly all their colonial possessions in the Pacific area, and their religion generally may have failed to displace the peoples’ ancient beliefs. But they are leaving behind,

especially in Asia, a series of nati< with a practical knowledge of p< tical structures and technologi science.

Settlement of Europeans in i Pacific Islands is only a small p of the over-all picture of the Wesfi invasion of the Pacific countries, a so that story has only a small secti of the book. But the survey is effi tively made and piquantly written, is shown that nearly a century passi after Cook’s voyages, before “boom” sent out our traders and c missionaries, to bring diseases a Christianity to many a lovely isle “whose inhabitants”, says Dr. Pri “would have been wiser had th continued to eat all new arrivals’

Dr. Grenfell shows that Weste control of social evils and the i troduction of Western technologies in a word, colonialism—have u leashed surging new populations a aggressive nationalism, which nc menace the future security of t Europeans. It is a new and fascinj ing angle on colonialism.—RWß. i

(The Western Invasions Of T 1

Pacific And Its Continents. Pu

lished by Oxford University Press. 57/S